Summary: This study explored the intersection of the cues of race/ethnicity and political party affiliation as they are presented in the news media and predict evaluations of political candidates. It predicted individuals' responses to political candidates presented in the news media after considering the expectations of congruity theory, the heuristic systematic processing model (HSM), and cueing. It found that congruity theory is an appropriate theoretical mechanism for explaining individuals' intentions to vote for political candidates, where individuals' political party affiliation is the ideal moderating variable to consider. It also found that both a candidate's political party affiliation and race/ethnicity are salient in determining voting preferences and attitudes toward the candidate. Moreover, the discrepancies between cueing and priming are presented and distinctions are suggested in terms of implicit and explicit attitudinal responses to stimuli. Using HSM and congruity theory, this study's results indicated that cueing occurs when information is consciously consumed, which should be conceptualized and operationalized differently than priming, which occurs when information is unconsciously consumed. As part of this exploration, an HSM codebook for open-ended data was developed and is recommended for future use. This study also examined the perceptions of political candidates and potential voters affiliated with the Independent Party, an underexplored area of scholarship. It found Independent Party candidates are more implicitly preferred by individuals who range from moderate to liberal in terms of their political ideology, but can be explicitly preferred by more conservative individuals. Also, Independent Party voters showed no preference for Independent Party candidates. Finally, this study adds to the body of research examining the use of counterstereotypes in the media to promote pro-social attitudes by determining if presenting members of minority racial/ethnic groups in leadership positions can prompt the adoption of more positive implicit and explicit attitudes toward members of these groups. The results showed that the news media's positive portrayal of political candidates within minority racial/ethnic groups does not result in more positive attitudes toward their respective racial/ethnic groups more generally.